Window Lengthens to Buy Again After a Sacramento Short Sale

Coinciding with the dropping rate of short sales in Sacramento, Fannie Mae has announced it will not allow a buyer with a short sale on his record to buy another home for four years, beginning August 15th, 2014. The waiting period to buy again after a short sale used to be 2 years. This means is you’re a home buyer seeking conventional financing who completed a short sale less than 4 years ago, you need to enter into a purchase contract to buy a home before August 15th. That’s only about a month from now. You’ve got to get cracking.

A few years ago, it was not unusual to see almost 3 out of 4 of the homes on the market for sale as a short sale or a foreclosure. Not so today. Today, the real estate market in Sacramento has shifted and fewer than 10% of the homes for sale are short sales. That’s a dramatic drop and shift in the marketplace.

If you are selling a home as a short sale, it means fewer buyers will want to buy your home when 90% of the other homes for sale are not a short sale and do not involve approval from one or more short sale lenders. Unless you’ve got an extraordinary home in high demand, like a 4,800 square-foot mansion in The Rivers that I just put into escrow or an entry-level home below $200,000, you might wait a while to sell your home as a short sale.

But the sellers who have already sold as a short sale and now want to buy again after a short sale could get locked out of the marketplace for a while if they don’t buy before August 15th. FHA loans still carry a 3-year waiting period, but Fannie Mae for conventional loans, without extenuating circumstances, well, you have to wait 4 years if you don’t act within the next 30 days.

If you have 20% down and want to buy a home within 2 years of your short sale closing, now is the time to buy a home in Sacramento. You can call Elizabeth Weintraub, the best Sacramento short sale agent in the Sacramento valley, at 916.233.6759 for more information.